Wisdom at last : Scientists say expose your kids to germs to stay healthy.

March 21, 2006

To head off allergies, expose your kids to pets and dirt early. Really. Doing so might program young immune systems to know what — and what not — to react to By Steve SternbergUSA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060320/1a_cover20.art.htm Excerpts: Here's the conventional wisdom: Pets promote allergy, kids shouldn't eat peanuts until they're at least 3, and intestinal worms are nothing more than an icky reminder of life before flush toilets. Here's the new wisdom: Early exposure to pets, peanuts

and intestinal worms might actually be good for you, because they program the developing immune system to know the difference between real threats, such as germs, and Aunt Millie's cat. Evidence to support this view has been mounting for more than a decade. But now, for the first time, researchers are beginning to test remedies based on these theories in patients. Other doctors are trying to make use of novel approaches to retrain the immune system once it's too late and allergies set in. “What we've learned is that it may, in fact, be important to be exposed early on to a sufficient quantity of allergy-causing substances to train the immune system that they are not a threat,” says Andy Saxon of the University of California-Los Angeles. "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by

the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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